There are pirate Nes/Famicom consoles are shaped like popular consoles, like for example the first playstation [nesplayer.com].

How nice of them to keep the PS box with its advertisements for playstation games. It even has a flyer that advertiess NES/Famicoms in the shapes of a Genesis, SNES, N64, NeoGeo?(I think, I can't quite tell), and the different versions of the same consoles(i.e Genesis version II).

So I can see them making a GameCube shaped pirate Famicom/Nes if they haven't already.

"IANAL, but I've read a lot of Groklaw, and from what I can understand Nintendo has never really cracked down on NES, SNES, or N64 roms"

Ehhh... it depends. Two years ago, as was all over Slashdot, Nintendo was among the companies that went after Lik Sang, particularly for selling Flash Advance Linkers that could download and upload GBA roms. I also remember the hooplah over UltraHLE, an N64 emulator that was released when the N64 was still current. All in all, though, it seems Nintendo's anti-piracy efforts have been pretty low-key, at least where obsolete consoles are concerned.

They could do some of the same things the RIAA and MPAA are doing, for the same reasons; ROMs aren't as prevalent in P2P networks as music and movies, but they are out there. They could hassle the folks who write ZSNES and Snes9x. They could try hunting down those few crackers who actually dumped those NES carts and transferred them to a PC (it's not like they could have just used their Super Wild Card or the Flash Advance Linker). But from what I've seen they aren't.

It's almost as if, so long as money isn't changing hands, Nintendo (if not the console gaming industry in general) has something of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Consider the EarthBound "Zero" ROM [slashdot.org]. We have every reason to believe there is only copy of the (development) cartridge out in the wild. Money was paid to the person who owned the cartridge for the express purpose of dumping the image and putting it on the internet. And the Slashdot article I just linked to is about an interview with a Nintendo employee about whether the ROM is really the unreleased US version of Mother or just a fan translation of the Japanese version. And yet, to my knowledge, Nintendo's legal arm hasn't made a peep about the entire episode.

Nintendo has been listening to it's fans. If you are interested in the new GameCube Zelda game, you have to check out this trailer [ign.com], it's completely amazing, but I think it hasn't received enough attention because it was overshadowed by the DS at E3.

If I can infiltrate your bank's computer system, substract 1000 from the number saying how much you got in your account, and add 1000 from the number saying how much I got in my account, I didn't take any physical good from you, but did I just steal from you?